Jason Fried shared that his reflex to disagree came to a head when Richard Saul Wurman, the creator of the TED conferences, called him out.

"He said 'Man, give it five minutes.' I asked him what he meant by that? He said, it’s fine to disagree, it’s fine to push back, it’s great to have strong opinions and beliefs, but give my ideas some time to set in before you’re sure you want to argue against them."

From Holstee email series—sent to me on April 10, 2019—

Are you here to learn something or prove something?

I realized how guilty I was of trying to push my own ideas onto others before fully understanding their perspective. If you are familiar with Stephen Covey, this learning may ring a bell. It’s similar to Habit 5 in Stephen’s book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People — a classic I like to come back to every few years. Habit 5: Seek first to understand, then to be understood. It’s been a hard lesson for me to learn, but being able to deeply listen — withholding judgment, analysis, and my own projections from past experience — is something I have found to be deeply important.

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